"The actress has gotten flack for protesting too much, for seeming to imply she’s too good for her fans or her early roles. It’s true that her career-making films had loftier aspirations than your average teen romance, but Stiles claims it’s sheer coincidence that three of them were modern adaptations of Shakespeare: 10 Things, based on The Taming of the Shrew; a very arty Hamlet opposite Ethan Hawke; and O, with Mekhi Phifer as a basketball-star Othello. She also downplays the old profile chestnut that has her 11-year-old self sending an adorable letter to the avant-garde Ridge Theater Company, which promptly cast her in productions at La MaMa and the Kitchen. “I was this precocious little kid. It sounds so annoying to me right now.”"